{"id":2133,"date":"2011-09-18T16:37:13","date_gmt":"2011-09-18T22:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2133"},"modified":"2011-09-18T16:37:13","modified_gmt":"2011-09-18T22:37:13","slug":"goggling-google-goggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=2133","title":{"rendered":"Goggling Google Goggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

As at least ten people by now have written to tell me (though Eric the Fruit Bat<\/a> gets credit for being the first) Google has a project targeted at recognizing things in the physical world and looking them up online, as I wistfully wished for in my September 17, 2011 entry<\/a>: Google Goggles<\/a>. I vaguely recall hearing of the product on its first release, which (because it was for Android) was not something I could fool with on Windows.<\/p>\n

There’s even a word for the general concept, though it’s not one I would use: augmented reality<\/a>. I’m not looking for things to augment reality so much as simply document it–but in this age of exaggeration, I guess that’s pretty much the same thing.<\/p>\n

Google Googles is a mobile app currently available for Android and iPhone. You aim your smartphone (assuming it has a camera, as virtually all do) at something, and tap a button. The phone takes a photo, and then (I assume) there’s a conversation with the Google mothership to see if the photo resembles anything already in the recognition database. The app is free, at least for Android, and I’ve been having some good fun with it trying to see what its limits are. Here’s my report:<\/p>\n

Google Goggles recognized the following things:<\/p>\n